Friday, February 10, 2017

spots on socks

Hello honey bunches,

I hope you've had a gorgeous week.

Me? Not so much. Well actually it started off quite promisingly. We had a lovely weekend last weekend. Saturday was busy and we spent Sunday celebrating Bren's wonderful parents and their 50 years of love and marriage with dinner and a show.

But then it nose dived pretty quickly from there. On Sunday night I went to bed and didn't get up again until Thursday. My bones ached, my muscles cramped, I was HOT and then FREEZING, my chest hurt and I don't know how to describe the pain in my head except to say that I've never experienced a head ache quite like it. It was scary.

It's so dumb, but sometimes when I'm running around in my normal, healthy life, the thought of being sick and stuck in bed sounds dreamy. I imagine myself propped up on big poofy pillows, with my hair in a messy bun and my lap top perched on my knees, watching movies, knitting and taking sips of fizzy mineral water guilt-free. In my dreams, being sick was almost luxury.

Of course the reality didn't even vaguely resemble the fantasy: grubby, sweaty hair, eyes that were too sore to watch or read anything, head that hurt too much to listen to anything, scary pain and nausea and as for knitting, forget it. What a waste of time.

But I'm pleased to report that today, on day five of the awful sickness, I am just about well again. I'm still not at that stage where the whole world looks brand new and fresh and exciting and I feel like skipping through the daisies singing, but I'm close. Unfortunately Bren, Jazzy and Indi are still a few days behind me.

In other news, during the week my niece Sascha turned 20. Twenty years ago my farmer boy, who back then was probably more of a dread-locked gypsy boy, took a break from trekking the world and returned home to Melbourne to meet his newborn niece.

Not long after he'd returned, we met at a wedding, we fell in love and have been more or less inseparable ever since. Thanks to Sascha being born. I can't believe that was 20 years ago. I can't believe that that beautiful, tiny red-headed baby who wouldn't ever go to sleep is now practically grown. Sometimes I can't even believe that we have kids and cars and land and apple trees....

Twenty years hey!

What I can believe in though is socks knitting. I still love it. It still fills me up creatively and at the same time feels useful.

I knitted this pair for my farmer boy for his birthday, but due to some issues with the tension of the fair isle pattern around the top, he couldn't get them on. Miss Indi could get them on and modelled them for me, in exchange for a new Facebook profile pic. Remember the days when the going rate for bribery was a cookie? How things have changed. Anyway, as you can see from the photos, the socks are actually too big for Indi so will probably end up on Miss Jazzy's feet. Even though she was the last in the family to receive a pair from me. Better keep knitting.

The next thing that happened in my knitting land is that Indi requested a pair of socks with spots. Cool, I thought and proceeded to search the internet for patterns. Not so cool, I thought, when weirdly I didn't come up with any.

So I tried to convince her that what she really needed was a beautiful, snuggly shawl instead.

She disagreed.

So I got out some textas and paper and tried to work out what spots on socks might look like. Then I tried to work out how many stitches across and up and down they should be, how many stitches between them they should have, and how on earth I could evenly fit them across a 66 stitch sock. Is your brain hurting yet?

Once I had more or less worked out the stitches I tested them out by knitting a square. A square of spots.

That worked quite well but Miss Indi thought the spots were too big.

So I knitted a smaller swatch on 2mm needles with sock yarn.

Perfect!

Which leads us to now. For although I'm not 100% better I am better enough to take my spotty sock knitting into the other room to watch one of the Little Women movies. I have just finished reading the book and am dying to see the characters brought to life.

Gosh I adored that book. It broke my heart and brought me to tears of sadness and joy more times than I could count. I love those March girls, I love their relationships and adventures and of course I loved every single mention of knitting socks for the soldiers. What I wouldn't give for a chance to sit at that table for a night counting stitches with the sisters, turning heels, making lace and giggling at each other.

I can't believe I have never read it til now. Have you?

And with that I bid you farewell for another week.

May we all be healthy, may our tomatoes finally ripen, may our pickles have just enough pucker, and may the movie not disappoint the book.

17 comments:

You are so bloody clever.Polkadots are my absolute fave thing.Sounds like the proper flu- i had it the year before last. Scary & i was pretty slowfor a few weeks after. Even walking from the car to the school gate seemed such a monumental effort. Go gently Kate.Xx

Glad to hear you're on the mend! So could relate to the whistful thoughts if being sick. So you think that's a Mama thing? When toilet breaks are "me time" and you day dream of being sick and staying in bed!!

I am a fan of the Little Women book, having first read it right through as a young teenager after numerous attempts to read it at younger ages. I think it becomes more of a tearjerker the older I get but perhaps that is just the perspective of being a mother. My Little Women book is dear to me in many ways.

My book is an old, fabric-covered hardback that has lost its paper jacket (I don't remember it ever having one)but the illustrated endpapers remind me of wallpaper. A couple of the front pages have been lost while the remaining pages are yellowing.

Black and white illustrations are interspersed in the text while colour plate insertions have illustrations by Rene Cloke. I cannot find a year for my beloved copy which was published in England by P R Gawthorn Ltd of London and printed by Purnall & Sons of London. I would love to know its age. The story inside however is timeless.

I'm sorry that you were so sick that you couldn't even read anything at the time. As a chronic illness sufferer, spending a day in bed has no romantic or wistful notions for me at all! My feeling is like yours "What a waste of time!" very frustrating. So glad you are on the mend. Go easy as you get back up to speed.

Sounds like you have been quite ill this week, hope things are improving from now for all of you. Those socks are lovely lucky Jazzy to score a second pair so soon.Well done on the dotty spotty sock pattern. All those years of maths paid off.I haven't read Little Women, I know why ever not?? I shall get myself a copy post haste and add it to my reading list.cheers Kate

Hello from the US! I've been following your blog and Instagram for a few years now and am going to finally comment! I LOVE little women. Have read it a couple of times. The 1995 movie with Winona Ryder is my favorite version by far. I've watched it so many times I can nearly quote it. I recommend buying that one! Your knitting is such an inspiration. You've even made me consider knitting a pair of socks which has always been very intimidating to me! Hope you have a full recovery very soon!

Sorry to hear that you've all been poorly. Still better days to come. The spotty socks look great well done. Yes I read Little Women many years ago and loved it. If it's the old movie of the book I enjoyed it very much but enjoyed the book more. My imagination pictures all the characters so vividly that I can't always accept the actors they choose to portray them. Which is not a good thing for me. However I hope that you enjoy the movie. Is there a new version of it?

Little Women fortifies to keep going in this modern world. The adventures, good and bad, and the way they are faced with grace and strength of character fill me up. And the laughter, oh! May your convalescence more closely follow your illness fantasies!

Love the spotty socks! (many of projects for my girls have started that way.) Oh yes, I too love the March sisters! Ripe tomatoes sound lovely, just about to load the greenhouse here with trays of seeds, can't wait!

I saw Little Women before I watched it. It wa only then that I relizes that the film goes beyond the book. Only a couple of years ago I found that there is a sequel to it called Good Wives and the film covers both of them. I used to dream about living in a big magical house like that with sisters to share secrets with. :)

I was thinking it's Friday and upon landing here discovered it isn't yet as I came in search of your new post :-) So I read it again and am finally leaving a comment!As you wrote this post nearly a week ago I hope you're feeling heaps, heaps better by now. Being properly sick is no fun at all, and being not properly sick is annoying as we tend to keep going through it.

I ADORE those spotty socks! It's quite amazing what you *can't* find a pattern for when you go looking, isn't it? That's how I've ended up writing quite a few of mine - I thought there would be a pattern for it but find there isn't.

It's amazing how life works, with you and Bren having met because of the birth of a baby girl.

So glad to hear you are on the mend, I look at being sick the same way, how great to get a few days off, but then when it hits me I'd do anything to be well enough to go to work!I love the socks, you should publish the pattern when you have finished. Pretty please?Little Women is definitely a favourite that gets revisited every now and then, I've seen the Winona Ryder movie and the Elizabeth Taylor movie and loved them both. xx

Little Women is one of my all time favorite....I've actually been to Orchard House in Mass where she wrote the book. I'm also a big fan of her Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom...although they are "dated" now.....

I do read every single comment you leave and appreciate it very much, but I should let you know that I can be a wee bit on the useless side when replying to comments, that's just me, everyday life sometimes gets in the way....so I'll apologise now, just in case.